


sorrow is just all the rage

by theLiterator



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Gen, Illnesses, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-22
Updated: 2015-05-22
Packaged: 2018-03-31 15:50:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3983857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theLiterator/pseuds/theLiterator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-apocalyptic AU where Damian struggles to hold onto a sick Grayson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sorrow is just all the rage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [allourheroes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allourheroes/gifts), [Traxits](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Traxits/gifts).



> Thanks to traxits and tuxedo-elf for looking over this and making me post it, and go allourheroes for finishing her assignments.

Grayson was barely conscious before him, and Damian crouched to check his pulse, scoffing when he found it, strong and steady.

“Get up,” he snapped. “It’s almost sunrise and we are outside.”

Grayson murmured something, and Damian sighed, then squared his shoulders and gathered him up into his arms. Standing, he carefully adjusted the warm weight of Grayson, frowning when Grayson nuzzled his face into Damian’s shoulder and sighed heavily, his breath hot against Damian’s neck.

He remembered, suddenly, every time they had done this before, Grayson carrying him because he was wounded or drugged or, he was loathe to admit, even to himself, simply tired from patrol. Grayson had been so sure, so strong then. He'd been the only thing Damian could could trust in the bloody maelstrom of his life; rejected and rejected by family and by foe, but accepted unequivocally by this man.

“I’ve got you,” he said, trying to muster some warmth, some reassurance, and then he had to fumble to get his radio activated.

“Oracle, I’ve got the broken bird,” he said. “Where am I taking him?”

“Looks like he’s been crashing about three blocks to the south of you,” Drake said, his voice a hoarse rasp in Damian’s ear. “I’ll recall Black Bat and Batgirl to home base, but you’re too far out to get even to one of the Delta sites.” 

Damian snorted. He sounded worse, like the lung damage was progressing, and they still couldn’t do a damned thing about it, not for any of them.

It had been one of the reasons Damian had hoped to hit the aliens in an offensive; they might have a cure, or an antidote, and they hadn’t been able to find one on their own.

“I know; who knows what the hell kind of crash-pad he’s made for himself, but he’s still alive, right? It should be safe enough for one day. Plus, you’re not exactly helpless, as you’re so fond of telling us.”

Damian scoffed and closed the connection on Drake’s wheezing laughter.

***

Damian made his way to the building Drake had indicated, and Grayson wasn’t any sort of burden, and he wondered if it was like he’d explained once, that if it’s someone you...cared enough about, it wasn’t any burden to carry them. ‘No, he's not heavy; he's my brother,’ the saying went, and it was either holding true here, or Grayson had lost a dreadful amount of muscle mass in the time he’d been eluding them.

“Both, I should think,” Damian murmured in the silent grey of dawn, and Grayson responded by pressing more tightly into Damian’s chest.

Even in sleep, his eyes were sunken and bruised-looking, and his lips were cracked and bleeding.

The building wasn’t obviously occupied, and Damian could see the subtle tell-tales Grayson had left that showed a bird was housed there, and even though _Damian_ was wearing this particular bird’s colors (and hadn’t he always? Hadn’t all of them?) he knew that meant the others had been wrong, and Grayson hadn’t lost all sanity yet.

He didn’t feel nearly as smugly vindicated by the realization as he ought to have, and then, in the hallway outside the apartment he felt certain Grayson was using, he was stymied by the door handle.

He stared at it, perplexed that it wouldn’t turn, and then forced himself to let go of his burden, to prop Grayson, slumping and mostly asleep, against the wall.

Damian fumbled with his utility belt for a breath, two, then Grayson was mumbling something, and he froze.

“Key,” Grayson said. “Pocket.”

Damian had to wait for three repetitions of the words to make them out properly, and when he did, he lunged for Grayson, frisking him coldly, finding the hard lump of a key in the right front pocket of Grayson’s ragged, filthy pants, and withdrawing it.

It was on a fob that was worn almost to the point that Damian shouldn’t recognize it, but--

But it wasn’t _that_ worn, and Damian _did_ recognize it.

It had been his first Christmas with Grayson, and Pennyworth had first explained to Damian that he would be expected to choose tokens of his affection for the family, and then, with an increasingly dour face and fury lining the edges of his voice, what Christmas was supposed to be.

He’d lost his temper, he remembers, flushing with hot shame at the memory of his incontinence even now, even years later, in the abandoned hallway of a broken apartment complex, with Pennyworth dead and forgotten and no one else to bear witness to the event.

He braced himself on the door with its peeling paint and forced himself to shove the key into the lock, to let the robin fob bite into his skin.

To not remember wrapping it clumsily to put under the tree, to not remember the slow warm pride on Pennyworth’s face when he showed him the selection at the little boutique they’d gone shopping in.

To not remember the warm, strong embrace Grayson had forced on him when he’d opened the present.

The door opened with a long, low creak, and Grayson roused himself enough to regard Damian with slitted eyes and stumble his way inside, where he fell to his knees in the center of the efficiency.

The floor might once have been carpeted, but it had long since been ripped up, likely for fire fuel, and Grayson had made a nest of emergency gear in one corner that might have passed for a bed if Damian weren’t accustomed to the surety and luxury of the cave, even at the end of the world.

Damian laid the key primly on the laminate countertop near the sink, and then he went to Grayson to usher him to the bed, cajoling him under his breath, trying his best to avoid the necessity of carrying him again.

“Let’s get you out of these rags,” Damian muttered, and Grayson nodded, mumbled something that only highlighted how dehydrated he must be, and Damian found the spout to his water pack and pressed it to Grayson’s lips, leaning in so he wouldn’t have to strain, and pressing the hidden button that would push some out.

The way Grayson licked his lips, greedy and desperate, made Damian hush him, laying a gloved hand flat against his cheek.

“There’s plenty,” he said, which was a lie, though only a bit. The water in the cave came from an isolated well that was as of yet undiscovered and untainted. There _could_ be plenty, was the point, and that was close enough. They’d enough to last them through sundown, and Damian didn’t actually need to drink anything if Grayson needed it all. He’d live.

Grayson would too. He’d see to that.

It took a good twenty minutes to get Grayson settled; he was still barely-responsive, but he was improving, Damian rather thought, with just a bit of care.

That thought filled him with guilt, so that he stationed himself at the door, his back against it and his head tipped back against it so he would hear if any of the patrols decided they needed to re-inspect the building.

He drifted out in and out of sleep to the rhythmic sounds of the flying patrols and the forgotten warmth of the sun on his face where it leaked through the imperfect blackout paint on the windows.

***

“Nightwing, huh,” Grayson said, waking Damian all the way, hours later, the sun still bright in the sky, but starting its downward descent.

“Yes,” Damian said.

“I assumed it would be Red Robin that Oracle sent after me,” Grayson said. “Or were you afraid he’d lose it and try to kill me?”

“As unstable as Todd is, no-- I volunteered before he could.”

“And Oracle?” Grayson sounded-- something. Indifferent in a way that Grayson _shouldn’t_ sound, and Damian wondered if he was remembering Gordon before she’d died; her warm, soothing voice in their ears. _They had been lovers_ , he thought, irreverently.

“He fought it, but the decision has always been mine.”

“Has it?” Grayson asked, and he started coughing, hard enough that he buckled under the weight of the hacking, bracing himself against the ruined floor to ride it out.

“Yes,” Damian said simply, inclining his head. Grayson and Drake both preferred it if he pretended the cough didn’t exist, and he knew the value of dignity, so he allowed that, as he allowed many other things he shouldn’t.

As he allowed them their hope.

“Aww, Rob, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you _cared_ ,” Grayson said, teasing and warm and _Grayson_ , as if nothing had changed. As if--

And Damian remembered, vividly, the fight that had led them here, to this, to Grayson hiding in some unsecured apartment building in the most patrolled part of the city.

_”We just have to hold out a little while longer,” Grayson says, shaking his head at Damian’s plan to go on the offensive. “Bruce will be back with Hal and Kyle and everyone in just a little while, and then we’ll be fine.”_

_”We won’t be fine,” Damian replies nastily. “Because they’re all_ dead _, can’t you see?”_

_”What would stop you, Damian?” Grayson asks, uncharacteristic seriousness marring his handsome features. “What will make you believe?”_

And then-- then Grayson had left, using himself as a hostage against Damian’s plan, because he’d known-- and damn him, damn him for being the only weakness Damian had ever cultivated, and damn him worse for _knowing_ , 

“I do care,” he whispered, and admission of defeat. “Don’t act as if-- as if--” his chest tightened suddenly, and not with emotion, but he didn’t cough. He _refused_ to cough.

Grayson must not see him weak.

“Oh, oh, Damian,” Grayson said, and he stumbled into Damian’s arms and cradled him close, kissing his hair. “No, I know that, of course I know that; you know I do. Come here.”

He kept babbling nonsense, and Damian let him, leaning into the embrace and trying not to listen to the crackle of his lungs as he breathed.

“Come on,” Grayson said at last. “I drank all of your water, and now I’m nauseous, and you haven’t even tried to sleep. Let me just lock the door and--”

“The key is on the counter,” Damian said, pulling himself to his feet, and then Grayson. “It’s sentimental and stupid,” he added.

Grayson shrugged, and when he smiled, the corners of his lips cracked and fresh blood welled.

Damian shivered and took his hand to drag him back to the bundle in the corner.

It was only once they were settled in properly, Damian’s back pressed firmly and reassuringly to Grayson’s chest, that Damian let himself ask the question he’d wanted to know since Grayson had left.

“Do you hate me?” he whispered.

The breath Grayson sucked in rattled through his lungs audibly, and stayed there, caught by Damian’s brazen weakness, set out before them in shining, shameful glory.

“Not ever,” Grayson said softly. “I hate that you can’t hope, but that’s hardly your fault.”

“Do you hate--” The words froze on his tongue, and Damian catalogued the play of the sunshine on the filthy floor rather than try to finish.

Dry, rough lips against the back of Damian’s neck, and the arm around his ribcage pressing tight, tighter, like he might run if he could.

And, Damian thought bitterly, he might.

He laughed, low and hoarse, and it came out rough and jagged and broken like a cough. Grayson’s arm was a steady, solid weight against him.

“Not ever,” Grayson said. “Get some sleep.”

He’d used to say _‘Your dad’ll be back any time now, and the rest of the League. You’ll want to be well rested so you can join the fight, right?’_

He’d used to say _‘Things’ll be better in the evening.’_

He’d used to say _‘I love you.’_

Today, he said nothing at all.

“Things will look better in the evening, Richard,” Damian said into the echoing, agonizing silence. “I love you.”

It was the first time in a long time that he wished for his father’s return, and he was certain he’d never wished for it harder.


End file.
